


Never Lost

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Secret Circle - L. J. Smith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 09:03:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were times that Cassie could still be amazed that Nick cared so much about her</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shojou_bubbles](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=shojou_bubbles).



> Written for Fandom Stocking 2013

There were times that Cassie could still be amazed that Nick cared so much about her.

She’d assumed that after she broke up with him because it was too obvious that she had been in love with Adam at the time that it would be the end of things between the two of them. They had still stayed very close friends, but she thought that romance was over between them.

Until the cord between her and Adam broke. 

Until the attack on the Circle happened. 

Until she and Diana had decided that trying college far away from New Salem might be a good idea for both of them. They needed a break. _Cassie_ needed a break. Too many times she had been too near to death and that weighed on a person both mentally and physically. It weighed on all of them. Cassie needed to get away from New Salem for a while after high school and Diana was going with her.

So, Diana found a job and waited around town while Cassie finished her last year of high school and then the two of them headed down to Florida and the college that they had chosen from among their acceptances.

They couldn’t stay away from the oceans and beaches, no matter what kind of painful memories were associated with them and everything they’d had to do in recent years to keep themselves and the rest of the town alive and safe. Besides, in Florida, they would still be close enough to get home if there were some kind of emergency that happened.

What they shouldn’t have been surprised about was the fact that the Circle still needed to be connected and when they left, two members followed them to keep an eye on them from afar.

The afar thing didn’t last too long after Cassie came across Nick sitting on the beach beneath the house Diana’s father rented for them and staring into the water. She was silent as she walked across the sand and then sat next to him, watching the water as well.

“You never talk about it,” Nick finally broke the silence after about a half an hour. “From the time it happened until the day you and Diana left, you’ve never discussed what happened between you and Conant.”

Cassie shook her head and looked down at the sand. “There never seemed anything to talk about.”

“The power couple just suddenly fell out of love?”

She sighed, wishing she had a better way to try to explain everything that she felt and everything that she had thought. “We never wanted to be the power couple. _I_ never wanted that much pressure. Was it so much to ask that if I had to always be on alert against magic and someone like Blackwell coming after us again, that in my personal life I didn’t want to always worry about my power and magic? Sometimes I just wanted to be a teenager. Sometimes, I just wanted to have something normal.”

“Normal can be overrated, Cassie.”

“Sometimes, yeah, it can. But sometimes… well, it would have been nice if we could be a couple just because we were in love and not because everyone knew about the silver cord. Reincarnated lovers could be nice – until it seems that every fight or change one of you makes gets dismissed because you’re always meant to be because of the damned cord that connects your souls. It was too much pressure to be perfect and finally… it broke us.”

“Broke you or broke him?”

“I still don’t know the answer to that, Nick. We both agreed to end it before it killed us and our friendship.” She sighed. “I’d love to be able to tell you that I’d been altruistic and was willing to break up with him before we ended up doing something to hurt the Circle because of all of the energy and stress that kept coming up between him and I. I’m not that good, though. I parted with him because I needed it for myself before I lost myself.”

Nick was silent and then he reached over and took Cassie’s hand in his own. “I’ll never let you lose yourself, Cassie. No matter what happens or what the future holds for any of us, I promise you I will always be there to keep you from being lost.”


End file.
